Check out the performance of Justice Crew on the finals of Australia’s Got Talent – then go and vote for them: sms JUSTICE to 199 77 77 2 or call 1902 55 333 7.  Voting closes 12:00pm (AEST) on 11/06/10. Good luck Justice Crew!

I’ve been a member of ebay for about a year now but I really haven’t bought anything until last week. Prior to that I did bid on a couple of items but being a “cheapskate” I didn’t win. Last week though I decided to look for some game cartridges for E’s leapster. They don’t sell it here anymore since they have the new version of the leapster along with the newer version games. I finally won on a bid and just because it’s not a hot item haha! It is at a good price and I think a best buy compared to ordering one from the US. I think I’ll be buying a couple more games for E.

I was at the mall earlier today for some errands and while passing by Borders I noticed that they had posters up of an e-reader they were launching. Didn’t have time to  check it out but got an email today about it.

Here’s the Kobo reader .. a new competitor to Amazon’s Kindle.

One of the major things that attract me to it is the price point, it’s selling at A$199 and available locally compared to buying Kindle from Amazon’s US website and at a higher price plus shipping. Kindle does have the advantage of more book selection. Hmm, me thinks me likey Kobo haha .. is it worth to get though?

Early this year when we were packing for our move to our current place I was browsing online for places that sold moving boxes. I initially contemplated on getting custom cardboard boxes (for clothes, cds and other stuff) but then when I saw the costs involved I just hied off to the nearest supermarket and asked for boxes. They normally re-stock shelves at night so you can just basically grab the boxes from the trolleys. One bad thing though was that there were limited supply for big boxes, I don’t know why but most of the boxes that the items came in where small in size. We did put them all the boxes I was able to get to good use. It helped a lot with the daily runs that we did in moving our stuff.

Here’s a parody of Alicia Keys’  Empire State of Mind ..

I survived term 1 hahaha! One term down and many many more to go. I must say that E has adjusted pretty well to school and he actually likes to go (well so far, I haven’t had any days where he has told me that he doesn’t want to). I think right now what stresses me more is planning and preparing his lunch everyday. You might say that’s the easy part but hey I’m no goddess in the kitchen. Need to search for more quick and easy lunch recipes.

On homework, he’s keen to do them. I’m glad that right now he doesn’t think of it as “work”. I’m also amazed at how quickly he learns. From not being able to read at the start of term to being able to go through a short book by himself, all that under two months of being in school. He does have a tendency of losing focus though (if only you can give him something similar to a project management software just to make sure he does what he needs haha) and the teacher recognized that so she sat him beside someone who’s really focused on doing the work in class.

Last week we did parent interview with his teacher and am glad that so far we’ve only heard good things. He’s performing according to the level that they are expected at this stage. And also happy to hear that he’s good in math, he’s among the top in his class in that area. So far we’ve adopted a “relaxed” attitude towards his studies but I know that at some point we do have to push him to excel. Ichi has already slightly hinted with him that he has to go to university. Here’s hoping that he will thrive in school.

The place we moved to now is along the main road and some of our “neighbors” are car dealership. This one is right beside our building.

One afternoon we went car window shopping from our balcony and these are what E chose:

this

and this

What do you think? :p

We’re now into the first week of February and I feel like January just flew past. So what happened in January?

• We celebrated E’s and my birthday
• We had to do house viewings on weekends with the kids in tow
• My mom went back to Pinas after spending 3 months here. Her luggage exceeded the luggage allowance with all the gifts for her friends and she had to send some back thru a balikbayan box.
• My in-laws flew in for their turn to visit mid-January
• Prepared all the things that E would need for Kindy

And now we’re in the midst of E’s first week in big school and packing all our stuff for the move into the new place.  Hopefully we’ll be settled into the new place and the new routine by next week.

In the year and half than we’ve been here in Sydney we’re already on our third house. The places that we’ve been renting all got sold (blame the additional bonus first home owners grant given by the government) so we had to move, that’s how lucky we’ve been. It is such a chose doing house viewings and the whole application process, good thing we managed to find a unit. Since we’re moving into the part of town that is nearer E’s school, our choices were mostly flats/units so one of the things we looked at was the wireless security systems that each of the complex had. Security is also good on the unit that we finally leased and another plus is the low number of units it has. Good luck to us on the new place.

After spending three months here my mum went back to Manila a couple of weeks ago. I’m really thankful that she came over to stay with us, aside from getting to spend time with her and she getting to spend time with the family, it was really a big help for me while recovering from giving birth. Thank you mumsy! mwah!

On the other hand, my in-laws are arriving here in Sydney tomorrow morning, so yey for me!! I definitely need help with the kiddos as we’re moving homes again (the life of a renter ). And with E starting kindy next month maybe I’ll get to have some hours to myself, maybe catch a movie or something.